CLEVELAND, Ohio - Free college tuition for Cleveland public school students.

That sounds almost too generous to be true, but it's exactly what is being proposed by a consortium of civic organizations hoping to combat poverty and boost the economy in Cleveland by embracing a program called Say Yes to Education.

A Cleveland Connects forum on Say Yes to Education is scheduled for Sept. 18 and will provide a lot of the details. The hour-long program begins at 6 p.m. and will be streamed live on ideastream.org and cleveland.com. The forum will be held at the Idea Center at Playhouse Square, but registration for in-person attendance has closed.

Cleveland Connects is sponsored by PNC Bank and produced by cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer in partnership with ideastream, the public broadcasting entity that includes WVIZ/PBS Channel 25, WCPN FM/90.3 and WCLV FM/104.9.

The moderator will be Michael K. McIntyre, Tip Off columnist for the Plain Dealer and cleveland.com, as well as host of "The Sound of Ideas" public affairs radio show.

Say Yes to Education started in 1987 when investment manager George Weiss promised to pay the college tuition of 112 Belmont Elementary School students in Philadelphia. Since then, Say Yes has broadened to include community-wide programs in Buffalo and Syracuse, N.Y., and in Guilford County, N.C.

Now, Cleveland wants to take part. For the past two years, the Cleveland Foundation, Cleveland Metropolitan School District, United Way of Greater Cleveland, College Now, City of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County have been learning about what's involved in becoming a Say Yes community, from the money that needs to be raised to the system of student support that comes along with it.

Say Yes is what's known as a "last dollar" scholarship program in that it provides the cost of tuition after Pell grants and other forms of financial aid are factored in.

The goal of Say Yes is to remove barriers to education, such as the cost of college tuition. But it goes much beyond that. A Say Yes community also creates a system of in-school support that helps students stay focused on their studies from kindergarten to 12th grade.

That support includes in-school specialists who work with students and their families to make sure they have adequate shelter, enough food to eat, and a home-life that is conducive to learning.

The support is especially helpful in inner-city schools, such as those in Cleveland or Buffalo, where a large percentage of families live in poverty and are exposed to violence in their homes or neighborhoods.

Leading up to Monday's forum, cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer have published stories about the Say Yes Buffalo program and other types of community-wide scholarship programs in place across the United States.